Page 32 of Unbound
“Good girl. That’s it.”
I nearly choke again at the way he rumbles out good girl. How I wish I hadn’t fucked all this up and somehow managed to impress him in a way that might have had him calling me a good girl in the sexy way.
Instead he’s calling me mamaw. Fuck my life.
After a few more minutes of struggling, I finally get myself back together. Between the lack of sleep last night, the excitement of yesterday and this morning, and the heat of Walker’s body, I find myself yawning as I struggle to keep my eyes open.
Walker pulls me closer, resuming his earlier position. After bringing his feet back to the coffee table, he tucks my head against his shoulder. “Go to sleep, Sybil.”
“I’m not tired.” Another yawn muddles the last word.
Walker’s hand makes slow passes up and down my arm. “Getting enough rest isn’t betraying your dad, you know that, right?”
“That doesn’t sound right at all.” It’s unnerving how easily this man can see through me. Can identify the reasons I am the way I am before frowning at me and demanding I do something different. “It’s already been so many years, and I hate letting it keep going on. I want this finished so I can move forward with my life.”
“I know.” Walker rests his head against the cushions at his back and closes his eyes. “But what you’re trying to do isn’t easy. If you’re exhausted, you’re going to make mistakes. And if you make mistakes you’re going to get hurt.”
I want to tell him he’s wrong. That I don’t make mistakes like that. But obviously I do. That’s how those men found my hotel. How they tracked me to Willow Bend even though I’m here under an assumed name. Even though no one in my life knows I’m here, not even my mother. “I don’t care so much if I get hurt.” I rock my head back so I can look up at his profile. “But I don’t want anyone in your family hurt because of my mistakes.”
It’s possible that’s already happened. But until I know for sure it’s me the shooter was after, I’m going to cling to the slim chance something else brought him to McKinley Security.
But if something else did bring him there, I’m not the only one who made a mistake.
“You said you have documents from the cold case archives.” My next blink is a little longer than the one before it. “How long have you had those?”
Walker doesn’t even open his eyes as he says, “Less than a week.”
Any possibility of me falling asleep evaporates. I sit up straight, thoughts and questions tumbling through my mind at an epic pace. “Less than a week?”
I’ve had my suspicions about the police department here, and discovering Walker was there recently sends my gut sinking. Because what if that shooter wasn’t here for me after all? What if I was the one who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? What if the target I believed was on my back was actually stuck to someone else’s?
“How did you get the documents from the archives?” It’s something I’ve been attempting to do for one hell of a long time, and no matter where I looked, I only managed to find a few photographs and a single newspaper article. I can find all sorts of cases around the same general time frame, but not the one involving Walker’s mother.
That’s a big part of the reason I came here. If I wanted information, I was going to have to work for it. And not in the normal, sitting in front of my computer chugging energy drinks and eating Hot Cheetos with chopsticks sort of way.
Walker cracks an eye open, peering down at me. “Are you seriously not going to go to sleep?”
I feel kinda bad, because he’s probably just as tired as I am and was looking forward to enjoying a nap. “I can tell you I will if that makes you feel better.” There’s no way I could relax enough to drift off now, but there’s no reason Walker can’t. I’ll even be super quiet. All he has to do is point me in the direction of the information he found, and I’ll entertain myself for hours.
Hyperfixation is fun like that.
With a groan, Walker straightens his spine, one hand coming to scrub at his face. “I guess we’re getting up then.”
I’m unprepared for his next move, which is standing without straining at all, taking my weight along with him. One arm is banded across my back, hand braced at my waist as we move. I yelp, surprised at the suddenness of the shift, both arms latching onto his shoulders in an attempt to keep from hitting the floor.
Considering the solid grip Walker has on me, that was never a danger, but it takes my brain a second to figure that out since it’s almost completely occupied by thoughts of what could be in the information he obtained.
I barely notice my feet touching the floor, because the whole front of my body is touching something much more interesting. Something interesting enough to divert my brain capacity from police files and shooter scenarios.
My eyes bounce from Walker’s face to shoulders to the biceps locked at my sides. “You’re really strong.”
As I say it, I think about how true it is. Not just in the physical sense—though Walker is probably the strongest guy I’ve ever seen—but also mentally. Emotionally. It takes an amount of fortitude most people don’t possess to not only survive the loss of a parent as a child, but to thrive in spite of it.
I know. I also lost a parent as a child. But I’m pretty sure no one is going around accusing me of thriving. Yes, I own a townhome, but it was bought with my dad’s life insurance money. I’ve worked regular jobs, but it never took long before my need for change pushed me to find something new. And I’ve spent the past two years not working a paying job at all, again thanks to Dad’s life insurance, along with Mom’s brilliant decision to invest the bulk of it for my future. Not sure spending those days sitting alone in a dark room in front of a computer, teaching myself to do something that’s probably highly illegal, could be considered thriving. Not by most people’s definition.
“I carry heavy boxes around all day.” Walker’s incomplete explanation is a reminder of yet another job in my rearview.
“And now you’re doing it without an assistant again.” I give him a look I hope expresses my regret over putting him in this position. “I’m really sorry.”
